Growing Knowledge & Building Partnerships

Since the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 virus a pandemic in early March, Guyanese of all ages have been asked to stay home as much as possible and to socially distance themselves from others. One of the recommendations is to avoid being in groups of more than 20 people. The purpose of the “self-quarantine,” even for healthy people, is to slow the spread of the virus, which threatens to overwhelm the hospital system. It was not very difficult for the Taijbally family to adapt to this new norm as the family hails from the farming community of Johanna Cecelia on the Essequibo Coast of Region 2. Mr. Ramsingh Taijbally motivated his wife Shivanie, his two daughters Arvinie and Divya, his mother Bhagmattie and a very ambitious young nephew Ricky to embark on a container vegetable gardening initiative. Farming isn’t something new to the Taijballys since they have been involved in this for generations. However, to reduce the amount of times they would have had to leave thei

In  Guatemala,  just around  5% of students have access to higher education.  The Univer sidad de San  Carlos ( USAC)  is the  only public and autonomous  university in Guatemala, and one of the first universities  founded in the Americas.  It has at least one education center in each department across the country, and one of them is  t he Centro Universitario de Noroccidente (CUNORO C) .      CUNOROC is located in the city of Huehuetenango and was founded in  1976 . In the Huehuetenango department,   it is the only public higher education institution that  offers degrees in forestry, agriculture, social work, and health sciences.  Currently,  CUNOROC has more than 4,000 students and 110 teachers. In addition, CUNOROC provides extension and connection services for the agricultural, forestry, and social sectors of Huehuetenango.     This education center   had  the minimum infrastructure, equipment and  professor s  to operate a  soil laboratory,  but  it  lacked  a formal business plan

Alligator Pond Processors, a new agro-processing company, was elated when Ralph Bucca agreed to train them in fruit processing in January and February 2020, right before the annual fruit ripening season in Jamaica. Ralph has spent the past 13 years conducting workshops and has completed several Farmer-to-Farmer volunteer assignments worldwide as an Agro-Processing Specialist. He plans, organizes, trains and directs local populations on appropriate, affordable technology and various aspects of food processing and preservation techniques, with an end goal of food security. For this assignment, Ralph visited the touristic rural town of Alligator Pond in the southwest of Jamaica for two weeks, where he provided guidance on the fermentation of tropical fruits to five different groups in the area. Local fruit producers had attempted to conduct fermentation in the past, but they lacked the basic knowledge needed to create successful products. Ralph brought over 40 years of experience, equipme

Field officer Rafael Marte, volunteer Kenneth Andreis and communitarians from Puerto Plata after receiving assistance in goat production, hygiene and feeding. In July 2019, the Dominican Republic’s Farmer-to-Farmer Program received two wonderful volunteers in swine and goat production management. The host, Caritas Dominicana, is an NGO created by the Conference of the Dominican Episcopate to serve the most vulnerable people and groups, with the aim of improving their living conditions and building a society based on justice, fraternity and peace.  Dr. Kenneth Andries, an  Associate Dean of the College of Agriculture, Communities, and the Environment  at Kentucky State University with a PhD in Animal Genetics arrived in the DR as a goat production management volunteer. And Guilherme Prezotti, a veterinarian of Brazilian origin with a Master’s degree in Animal Science from Texas Tech University, traveled to the DR to complete a swine production management assignment. Field

In the last couple of years, the demand and price of panela (unrefined whole cane sugar) in Colombia have gone down, deeply affecting thousands of smallholder farmers and producers. Because of this, Fedepanela, the national federation of panela producers, reached out to the Farmer-to-Farmer program to request a volunteer to carry out a market study and connect four associations of organic panela producers to potential clients in the U.S. and Europe.  Fedepanela represents more than 270 panela associations that encompass 19.000 producers, but for this assignment they chose four organic panela producer organizations located in the department of Cundinamarca that have formed an exportation block called “Mesa de Cundinamarca”, based in Bogotá. All together they can export approximately 80 tons per month of organic panela. These organizations are Asopropanoc, Prodinalpa, Asopromieles and Panela San Isidro.  In February 2020, Carlos Perez Vega travelled to Colombia to support th

In September 2019 I travelled to Guyana to participate in USAID’s Farmer-to-Farmer program, implemented by Partners of the Americas. What a wonderful three weeks I spent in this tropical paradise! The Animal Health Unit of the Guyana Livestock Development Authority (GLDA) is responsible for implementing sanitary measures to mitigate the introduction and spread of disease in the country that could affect animal and public health. As a member of the World Organization of Animal Health and recognizing its obligation of fair trade under the World Trade Organization, a high level of competence is necessary for the GLDA to develop Sanitary and Phytosanitary measures.  To develop the necessary capacities, I was asked to volunteer under the Farmer-to-Farmer program to provide technical assistance to the GLDA in the development of disease risk analysis protocols and to help develop animal quarantine systems. The assignment was quite interesting from the start. The nation is beautiful. De